


Desire

by rubberbird



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Porn With Plot, Sebastian having a moral crisis because his dick got hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 09:44:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12010119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubberbird/pseuds/rubberbird
Summary: Sebastian is determined to keep his lust for Hawke concealed and constrained. A desire demon has other ideas.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during and after the Night Terrors quest. I’ve reduced the rating to an M, because Sebastian is a sissy and won't call body parts by their big boy names.

He'd only gone because Hawke had asked. She needed him, she said. Needed someone who wasn't going to be susceptible to "Fade bullshit". Her words, not his. But if that was true, he would very much like to know why she'd brought Isabela. Though perhaps it was obvious why. He knew she and Hawke had been… close.

He had to quickly turn his mind to the Chant to stymie the thoughts that erupted the moment he even thought about them together. Maker, sinful thoughts were wretchedly close to the surface these days.

_Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked…_

He was wrong to be here. It was no place for a man who had pledged his life to Andraste. And worse, his reasons for agreeing to it were hardly altruistic.

He winced as he looked up to where Hawke was leading them, as always. Confident and alert. Staff clutched in her hand. Seeming almost to glow like a lantern ahead of them in the greenish murk of that place. Glowing. Was that a… mage thing?

_Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow…_

But despite his aversion to it, he was undoubtedly a logical choice to bring here. He was surely immune to the tricks and falsehoods he knew purveyed that place. But their fellow companions… He glanced at Isabela, looking bored with a hand on one hip, and at Varric, offhandedly adjusting the cuffs of his jacket. Well, he liked Varric. He really did. But he lived in a tavern, of all places. And Sebastian knew he moved in circles that were far from salubrious. And Isabela… Well... He just shook his head to himself.

They walked into what looked like a stone courtyard. Despite the haze of the Fade, the austere lines of it were almost familiar to him. In a way he couldn't quite put his finger on. There was a door on either side of it. Hawke stopped and the rest of them piled up behind her. She leant on her staff, glancing from one door to the other.

"Well... That's helpful. Should we flip a coin?"

Her blue eyes and dark hair and the pale white of her skin stood out like a beacon here. Her robe clung to her small waist and shoulders in a way that Sebastian thought he should have been used to by now. He looked up at the darkened, ominous sky above them and forced himself to think about the Chantry in Kirkwall.

"I have a good feeling about left." Varric jerked his head in that direction.

"Good a way as any, I suppose," Hawke replied, straightening up. "Odd that we haven't met any demons yet. They're usually right up there with homicidal mages on the list of things that want to murder us."

"Maybe they've reached their possession quota for this month?" Varric muttered. "Maker, I hope so. I'm playing Wicked Grace with Blondie tonight and he owes me a small fortune. I can't afford to be possessed."

"They could be watching us," Sebastian said. His voice was remarkably steady, despite the nauseating twisting in his stomach. "Demons like to study their prey before they strike. I doubt they don't know that we're here."

Isabela sighed. "Great." She rolled her shoulders. "This is why nobody invites you to the pub, Sebastian. You have to spoil everything with logic."

Hawke however looked over her shoulder at him and gave him a small smile. He tried to smile back and felt like his attempt probably looked distinctly pained.  She turned back around and led them to the door on the left. Sebastian looked at a point on her shoulder (not anything lower) and recited the Canticle of Erudition in his head.

Through the door, they entered a characteristically murky, barren room and Sebastian's eyes immediately fell on a lone woman standing in the centre of it. No, not a woman. A demon. Desire demon. He had seen one before. He immediately tried to steel his mind, wipe it clean of thoughts. Though pride and rage often used brute force to beat their victims into submission, he knew desire much preferred to break open fragile minds and fill them with deceit and temptation.

Hawke stood in front of it and the desire demon's deadened eyes glanced over her and then at her companions. Isabela and Varric both stirred uncomfortably as her gaze crossed over them. Sebastian was sure he could physically feel it when it touched him. To him, a desire demon's eyes felt like a caress and an intrusion at the same time.

"My, my," she said, voice soft and yet echoing around the chamber." _Visitors_.Are you, by any chance, looking for someone?"

The demon's eyes didn't leave him. Sebastian swallowed, hand frozen in the act of reaching for his bow.

Hawke seemed to notice where its gaze was directed and she glanced towards Sebastian. She cleared her throat. "An elf mage. Seen him by any chance?"

The desire demon shrugged one shoulder languidly. "The last I saw, he was playing with pride. I'm sure it'll be my turn soon. He said he would share. After all... that's the nice thing to do."

Sebastian was balking under her continued gaze. He stared back at her, taming the obvious discomfort on his face as well as he could. He repeated the Canticle of Benedictions in his head until the words started to blend together.

"We'll just be going then." Hawke said pleasantly, turning to leave.

"Amusing," the demon said. Her eyes didn't move from Sebastian's face. "So full of wit and charm and flirtation. I wonder if there's anything else in that pretty head of yours." Sebastian was finding it increasingly difficult to keep looking at her. His skin prickled. "Or are you just hollow? Like the last words your dead sister spoke."

Hawke's expression didn't change as she turned back to look at her. The demon finally broke eye contact with Sebastian and looked at Hawke.

"Now, what were they? Oh, yes… I remember." The shadow of a spiteful smile flickered across her mouth. When she next spoke, Sebastian, Varric and Isabela all jerked backwards in surprise. The voice that came from her was not hers. " _Maker give me strength!"_

She laughed and idly shook the golden chains adorning her inhuman body. In front of them Hawke hadn't moved, hadn't given any sign that she had even heard her. It was impossible to tell what significance those words had to her, if any.

"Hawke, are we going to kill this thing or not?" Varric said in a low voice.

"No, I believe your fearless leader is waiting for me to offer to bring her poor, dead little sister back," the demon replied, tone derisive. "But I am no shepherd for the dead."

Her eyes snapped back onto Sebastian and he flinched, feeling his skin prickle. The demon walked towards him. Sebastian told himself to step backwards, but he physically didn't seem able to move. Hawke barred its' way before it could reach him, her back tense and inches from his chest. Sebastian was so close to her he could smell her perfume, the soap she'd washed herself with, the resin she'd rubbed into her staff—

The demon scoffed at her. "Down, mage. Let's not rush to violence like barbarians. I have words for your handsome prince."

Sebastian felt himself blanch. He found the words to speak though he knew they sounded wavering and unsure. "I have faced your kind before, fiend. I am no easy prey."

The demon smiled. Sebastian's stomach dropped. Hawke's back and shoulders were frozen in a defensive posture. He could see her back shifting tensely with her breathing.

"But I have such glorious things to offer you." The demon's expression twisted with pleased triumph. Her body seemed to violently shift in front of their eyes, the movement of her skin and limbs grotesque and unnatural.

Sebastian and Hawke both took two surprised steps backwards. Hawke collided with him and he found his hands unconsciously take hold of her waist to steady himself. He looked down at his hands in surprise and quickly let go. Hawke jerked her head towards him and then back at the demon. Sebastian followed her gaze and his insides contorted.

_Oh Maker no._

Hawke's expression as she looked back at him and then stared into her own eyes was almost humorous. If it hadn't been grotesque in every way imaginable.

The demon's Hawke was just as beautiful as the real Hawke, though dressed in a gown far more ostentatious than anything he had seen Hawke wear. Her breasts and mouth seemed slightly exaggerated and her hair was longer. Otherwise… It was her. Same clear, sharp eyes. Same teasing smile. If she had approached him in a room, he doubted he would have known the difference. Part of him balked horribly at that realisation.

"Holy shit. You want to fuck Hawke."

Sebastian looked sideways at Isabela. Her eyebrows were raised and she was clearly amused by this development. _Ungracious, unprincipled—_

"Maker," Varric mumbled, rubbing his forehead with his palm. "Is that really a surprise? Between him and Blondie and the elf all mooning over her like lovesick schoolboys, I'm surprised Hawke can see past the sea of goo-goo eyes."

"She is desirable, is she not, Prince?" the demon said. She pushed the real Hawke to one side, who seemed to have been struck dumb, her eyes fixed on the demon masquerading as her. "Not just beautiful, but brave, self-sacrificing. Much like your Andraste, no?"

Sebastian found the words to splutter: "don't you dare speak her name—"

The not-Hawke was close to him now. He stared into her face, torn between disgust and fascination. She raised a hand and laid the back of it against his cheek. Her skin was cold. The smell on her was strange. Like the faded perfume of flowers or the sweet, sickly smell of overly ripe fruit.

"And she is so much more touchable than your heavenly bride. So much more… flesh and bone." She raised her other hand and slipped the sleeve on her left arm down. It slid far down her arm and the bodice of her gown slipped down too to almost reveal—

"Can you keep my clothes on, if you don't mind?" Hawke finally said, sounding annoyed. She seemed to have regained her senses, though she was still staring at herself like she didn't know how she should be reacting to this.

"Yeah, please," Varric muttered. "I don't know if I'm in the right state of mind to see my best friend's—"

Hawke silenced him with a look.

The mimic didn't react. Its' eyes were fixed on Sebastian and her body hovered inches from his, sickeningly and overwhelmingly close. Sebastian knew his cheeks were burning. The humiliation almost eclipsed all other feelings he could or should have felt. To be exposed in such an ugly way was painfully mortifying.

And to make things worse (so much worse) was that the image of Hawke wanton, willing, vulnerable was so much like his fantasies (those shameful, treacherous images that entered his mind just as he was trying to sleep) that he was sure that this creature must have plucked them from his sordid mind especially. He swallowed.

_Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked…_

The demon brought her other hand to Sebastian's face, touched his jaw, tilted her face (Hawke's face) as she looked up at him, eyes hooded, mouth just slightly ajar. Oh, Maker how he had thought about those lips. Sweaty, desperate nights, tossing and turning, hand creeping below the covers just to be yanked away as he regained his self-control. But self-control didn't tame the aching and the wanting, the arch of his back as even the incidental rub of his covers became unbearable friction.

_… and do not falter._

"Don't mind us. We'll just wait until you're done with the shapeshifting sex demon, shall we?" Isabela remarked irritably.

"You're just jealous it didn't choose you," Varric said in a low voice.

"Of course I am," Isabela retorted. "Nobody could possibly appreciate a shapeshifting sex demon more than me."

"You would have been easy to turn, I'm sure," the demon said, without looking at her. "I could choke on the stink of want on you." She tilted her head to the side as she looked up steadily and unbrokenly at Sebastian. "But restrained desire, desperately contained lust is so much more… _delicious_."

Sebastian let out an audible choking sound as her hand suddenly moved with inhuman alacrity to the front of his armour, cupping the cameo of Andraste on his belt. He felt her grip it tightly, pulling his pelvis forward. A smirk played across her mouth.

"I can see all the things you want to do, Prince." Her tone was low, almost confidential. But they were not alone and he knew that Hawke was hearing every word. "Oh, how you've twisted and turned at night, how you've tried to tame your wandering thoughts. How you've _longed_ , little Prince. How you've _wanted_."

She made simple words sound unclean and unchaste. He felt like he was being stripped bare where he stood.

"Sebastian."

He looked up, feeling sick and dizzy on the demon's unwholesome scent. Hawke was looking at him. There was no expression on her face, but he thought he saw something in her eyes that he couldn't quite place. It was unlike her usual self-assured, amused glint. He looked her face over. Her skin still had that strange, faint bloom to it. His eyes snapped back to the demon's face. Hers did not.

"Come, Prince," the demon hissed softly, so close he could see her tongue flicking inside her mouth. "Slake yourself in her soft flesh. Sate your lust in her trembling body."

A sudden and overwhelming wave of sickness came across Sebastian so quickly it physically pushed him back. He tore himself from her grip and took two steps back.

"I have not come this far to bow to a demon's cheap trick," he spat. "You are nothing but a merchant of falsehoods."

Varric snorted. "Hey, I might use that line in my next book."

The demon's features twisted briefly with frustrated anger. She drew herself up to her full height. The left sleeve of her gown slipped further down and revealed her pale breast, adorned with a rosy nipple.

"Such gallantry," she snarled. "And can you live knowing that what I have offered you will never be offered again? Knowing that she—" the demon jerked her head with contempt at Hawke, "will never give you what you truly want? What you truly need?"

Sebastian looked at Hawke, and not the thing in front of him. "Crawl back into whichever Maker-forsaken hole you emerged from, demon." He looked into Hawke's eyes while she watched the demon. "Your test has failed."

The demon made a sound of anger and out of the corner of his eye, Sebastian saw her move sharply towards him. He lurched backwards, watching as the demon twisted in an unnatural way, blood bursting from the bodice of her gown and mixing with the gaudy red silk. She choked and gurgled as her guise slipped and her misshapen, demonic appropriation of a female body emerged from Hawke's.

Isabela looked satisfied as she tore her dagger out from the demon's torso and kicked her away. The demon crumpled over at Sebastian's feet and he looked down at her.

"You owe me one," she said, wiping the blood off on her tunic and sliding the dagger away. "That demon was about to gouge your eyes out with her teeth. I've seen the look before."

Sebastian swallowed, his throat feeling tacky and dry. "Th—Thank you. That was…" He couldn't finish the sentence.

"The speed at which you stab people will never not be terrifying," Varric said, staring at the demon's body.

"That wasn't a person, that was a demon," Isabela said, rolling her eyes. "And she was about to make Sebastian into demon chum. Tell me again why we didn't just stab her the minute she decided to play dress-ups?"

"Excuse me if I'm a bit weird about shooting my friend in the face," Varric replied. "Even if it was a disguise, it was… pretty convincing."

Hawke wasn't looking at any of them. Sebastian felt as though she was particularly and especially not looking at him.

"We have to find Feynriel. Who knows what that pride demon is doing to him." She sheathed her staff and turned to lead them out of the room. "I promised his mother I'd bring him home safe."

Oh, yes. They still had the apostate elf to find. Maker, he'd forgotten why they were there. Had forgotten just about everything, up to and including walking he discovered as he took a stumbling, unsteady step forward. He took his bow off of his back and held it tightly in his hands, promising himself that he was going to shoot the next demon he saw in its godless face.

Ahead of him, Varric turned his head to Isabela, speaking in a low mumble. "Is it just me, or was that really weird?"


	2. Chapter 2

As soon as they were back in Kirkwall, Sebastian went to the Chantry. He needed to be in the Maker's presence. He needed to pray. (Andraste's tears, did he need to _pray_ ). He knew the rest of them would head for the tavern, keen to gossip about him without him there. They'd be eager to pick over the humiliating, unforgivable secret he'd so clumsily exposed.

He sunk down onto the bed in his small, unembellished cell and rested his head in his hands. The stone floor was covered with a large threadbare rug bearing the Chantry's standard. The only other decoration, if you could call it that, was the Chant of Light, engraved into the stone of all four walls, worn, but still a comfort to him in the times that he needed it.

_In your heart shall burn an unquenchable flame…_

He sighed heavily. Where had he stumbled? He had sacrificed so much, given up so much ( _an entire city_ ), treaded so carefully. But the Maker had seen his heart. He knew that there were still earthly desires within him. For power, for his city, for the title he never thought he'd have. For a woman. A _mage_.

But Hawke… She had exploded into his life, much like she did into everyone's lives. At his lowest moment, she had suddenly been there, filled with warmth and vitality and a desire to help, and it had been as though… Well, though he was ashamed to admit it now, it had been like Andraste herself had pushed her in his direction. Given her… to him. This mage, who lived flagrantly outside the Chantry's laws, and helped other mages to do so. Who surrounded herself with dangerous people, and sometimes slept with those dangerous people. Who sometimes incensed him with her disregard for everything he held dear: the Chantry, the Maker, His word.

In the depths of his sweat-dampened, body-tensing dreams and thoughts, he sometimes envisioned himself as a Templar and her his ward. In a life where he had chosen another path in the Maker's service and she had accepted hers. And, yes, in those visions he abused his position and indulged in blasphemous, intoxicating pleasures with someone who couldn't run, but didn't want to, who gave herself to him, her captor, her protector— And, oh, how he needed to _possess_ her, protect her—

He heard himself release a breathy noise. His hand slid down between his legs and he grasped himself. He bit the back of his hand as he squeezed. Maker save him. He was lost. Deranged. Over this… _aberration_ he felt for Hawke. He bucked his hips forward, rubbing himself against his palm. It had been… months? Since he'd last touched himself. He knew the sight of it offended the Maker, but sometimes he couldn't control himself. It was a less offensive sin than the one he wanted to commit.

He forced himself, with every shred of willpower he had left, to take his hand away and get up from the bed. His legs felt heavy and clumsy as he stumbled towards the dresser. He unstrapped and unbuckled his armour and stripped it off. Took everything off until he was just standing in his boots, shirt and trousers. He stared at himself in the mirror on the wall.

He would go out soon and say his prayers, beg the Maker for forgiveness for his transgressions that day. Avoid Grand Cleric Elthina. Because she always seemed to know when something was plaguing his thoughts. And he didn't know if he could bear her quiet wisdom that day. She was so much wiser than he. She suspected he wasn't fit for this way of life and if she knew the truth it would only crystallise that in her mind.

He looked away from the mirror and left his room. It was late and not many townspeople were in the Chantry now. There were a few sisters still about, lighting the candles and straightening the pews, murmuring the Chant as they worked. He looked up to the pulpit and breathed a sigh of relief. Elthina wasn't there. He would have a few moments of peace to gather his thoughts.

He knelt at one of the pews and clasped his hands together, averting his gaze from those of the statues above him, their blank, gilded eyes. He stared down at the stone floor below him for a moment and then closed his eyes.

_Maker, my enemies are abundant. Many are those who rise up against me._

He paused, swallowing softly.

_But my faith sustains me. I shall not fear the legion, should they set themselves against me._

He shook his head against his clasped hands and exhaled.

_In the long hours of the night—_

A hand softly touched his shoulder and he jumped, his eyes flying open.

"Sorry to interrupt."

He looked up quickly, almost cricking his neck in the process. He felt a sensation like he had missed a step going down the stairs. Hawke smiled, somewhat awkwardly, down at him. The shadows from the candles flickered across her face.

Sebastian slowly lowered his hands. He cleared his throat. "I was just… praying."

Hawke sat next to him on the pew. He felt her thigh brush against his. "Do you want to keep going? I can wait."

Sebastian sighed and raised his eyes to the ceiling. "As though I could concentrate with you there, Hawke." He immediately realised how that sounded and hurried to clarify. "I mean… because—"

"I talk too much," Hawke said, her lips quirking. "I know what you meant."

Sebastian stared ahead, his hands laying in his lap. He was so painfully conscious of her beside him that he could hardly move. He needed to think of something to say, but nothing was coming to mind. His mind had gone pleasantly and horrifically blank.

Next to him, Hawke cleared her throat, nudging his arm with hers. "Could we possibly… talk somewhere private?"

Sebastian didn't reply. His lips felt so dry all of a sudden that he had to lick them.

"Maybe somewhere where we're not being spied on by at least four Chantry sisters?"

Sebastian glanced around and noticed that there were indeed more than a few curious eyes fixed in their direction. It must have been quite the late-night spectacle for them to witness an impromptu rendezvous between the Champion of Kirkwall and the Prince of Starkhaven.

Sebastian nodded very slightly and got to his feet, feeling for a few steps like he'd forgotten how to walk normally. He led her out of the main hall and up the stairs to his cell. It was dark inside and he hurried to light a candelabrum. The light flooded the small room and Hawke's face. She closed the door behind her, her eyes taking in his bed, his desk, the dresser, the etched Chant on the walls, the faded rug, the high, stained windows.

"This must be quite different to what you'd be getting in Starkhaven," she remarked. "There's not even a solid gold chamber pot."

Sebastian noted that she was only wearing a short tunic over leggings. No robes or staff, no coat.

Sebastian shrugged. "I could have one imported. Varric probably knows a guy who knows a guy."

Hawke looked at him and something in his stomach dropped like a weight. He tried to steel himself for what he felt he knew was to come: chastisement and a gentle letdown. But he'd be strong in the face of this. He'd brought this humiliation on himself and if Hawke wanted nothing do with him, then it seemed a fitting punishment.

"Hawke—" he started, about to launch into a mortified apology.

His words died on his tongue as he found her suddenly pressing herself into his arms, kissing him with an ardent insistence. He heard a gasp of surprise leave him, but almost on their own, with no input from him, his hands grasped her waist and he pulled her against him, returning her kiss with unpractised fervour.

_Maker. Maker. Maker._

He had to stop this. He had already crossed a line, had already broken a vow just by touching her, pressing her to him, kissing her. _Oh, Maker._ He didn't think he could stop. Hawke's hands were clutching at his shoulders, her body was pinned against his, rubbing up against him. She was breathless. With lust. _For him._ His mind could hardly process it.

Her hand left his shoulder to squeeze between them and he felt her paw at the front of his trousers. His eyes flew open and he took a step backwards, shaking his head.

"No… I… Hawke—"

She panted as she looked at him, eyes fiercely desirous and lips parted. "Sabastian… Please—"

The word was like a catalyst straight to the part of his brain least able to resist. A surge of keen and consuming need went through him and he threw himself forward again. He dragged her up into his arms and took her across to the bed. All he could think about was that he needed to touch her bare skin, be against her, be inside her now. _Now._

He placed her down and she pulled him after her, tugging at his clothes and her own at the same time. His brain seemed to checkout from the present for a moment while he took in the sight of her spread out on his bed, vulnerable, willing, aroused in front of him. He closed his eyes, saying a silent prayer of forgiveness as a feeling surged through him of a pure and engulfing need to possess. It was almost predatory in its intensity. He leant forward and tore at her tunic.

Their clothes ended up in a tangled collage on his floor. Sebastian struggled not to feast like a starving man on every inch of her flesh that was revealed. So many lust-drenched fantasies and idle thoughts… and they hardly did justice to her. She laid back in front of him, eyes bleary and hooded. He knelt over her, palming at her breast, the soft mound of it and the hardened nub of her nipple. She gave a low, pleased hum and stretched out her arms to pull him close to her. He let himself be taken and let out a helpless, gasping moan as his body was laid against hers. He felt himself be pinned against the V between her legs and had to close his eyes to steady himself.

Hawke rocked underneath him, spreading her legs and increasing the wantonness of the motion almost tenfold. He opened his eyes and looked into Hawke's. This was Hawke. He could hardly comprehend it. This was Hawke. She was underneath him, giving herself to him, letting him in, even after what she had found out in the Fade. Or maybe because of it? His mind was in no state to try and work out which one it was.

She lifted up a hand and touched his face gently. Her fingers were trembling. "Please, Sebastian." She took a shaky breath in. "Take me. I need you inside of me." Her voice as low, somewhere between a breath and a purr.

Sebastian moaned aloud before he could stop himself. He felt like he had fell into one of his frantic night-time fantasies. Hand shaking, he touched her face, unsteadily stroking her hair back from her forehead. His other hand fumbled between them, travelling over the plains of her lean figure, seeking out his quarry, finding it and pressing in gently, insistently. She arched her back underneath him. She made a sound like a groan and a gasp. He stroked her a few times and pulled his fingers away, letting them trail up the ridges of her hips.

"Sebastian…" she whispered.

Sebastian's mind erupted into a brief and violent battleground. He could no longer think in fully articulated sentences, but the sound and fury was like nothing he had experienced. It was like his uncertainties and doubts about what he was about to do had been given colour and form.

He touched her jaw, looking blearily down at her familiar and beautiful face. "Hawke."

He pushed inside of her, gripping one of her thighs and the bed covers. Hawke writhed and arched underneath him, a soft moan escaping her. Sebastian felt himself swell further inside of her and his eyes half rolled back in his head. This. This was what it felt like. Now he remembered. _Maker, he remembered._

He regained his senses and began to move. His body remembered the action, though he was holding himself back ( _barely_ ) from the frantic pace his hips seemed eager to take. He forced himself to go slowly. Focusing on keeping steady and not doing something mortifying ( _like spending himself right that moment_ ). He pressed his face into Hawke's collarbone, breathed in her scent, the scent of her perfume and the scent of her body—their bodies. He tapped into the sensation of her moving under him, suddenly feeling like he had never been so in tune with someone before, during sex or otherwise.

He quickened his pace and felt her react underneath him, giving an approving groan. His mind buzzed low with pleasure and the realisation hit him with sudden force: that he was _inside Hawke_. He was inside of her and she was letting him in. They were joining so easily and he felt so complete in her presence. The rightness of it was not what he should have felt at the ease of which he had so eagerly broken his vow.

 _Let the Maker not be looking down on me now,_ he thought between gasping breaths and the rough punch of his hips. Let Him not see how he had laid himself bare and vulnerable in front of a mage. Let Him not see how wantonly he had broken his vow. How easily.

His feverish thoughts were interrupted by Hawke's mouth pressing against his. She pushed insistently into his mouth. He whimpered, the throb and pressure below rapidly tautening and intensifying. He leant back and looked into Hawke's face. _Please let this not be some waking dream._

"Say…" He stopped to pant, his voice strained. "Say my… my name. _Please_."

Hawke writhed. " _Sebastian_."

Unlike the rapture of the afterlife, his completion came quickly and intensely. He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth as a moan was forced shamelessly from his throat. He thrust once more inside of her and spent. Funny how, before he was given to the Chantry, he had always thought that the moment of release was the closest he was ever going to get to paradise. In a flash of white and blinding pleasure, he saw the depths of depravity: of taking an uncollared mage within the very Chantry, just beyond the sight of those who guarded it and the eyes of Andraste herself. _Maker forgive him._

"Hawke! _Hawke._ _Oh_."

He collapsed against her.

Silence descended slowly and heavily on them. Staring blankly into the pillow against his face, he listened to the distant sounds outside, only just audible beyond the solid stone walls. The slow ebb of sensation back into his fingers and limbs came also with an ebb of something he knew well: shame. He panted and let the realisation of what he had done fill him to brim.

The smell of sex seemed to soak his small cell.

Underneath him, Hawke stirred and he moved to let her get up. She reached for her fallen clothes on the floor and began to dress. Sebastian sat up unsteadily. His body was sore and damp. But he'd be lying if he'd tried to tell himself that he hadn’t been filled with an almost drugging sense of satisfaction. It was an unneeded confirmation that yes, he missed sex. And he'd taken to it almost disturbingly easily, even after such a long time being celibate.

He watched Hawke pull on her clothes and brush them off, flattening down her hair and fastening the ties and buttons. She glanced in the mirror above his dresser and he caught her eye in the reflection. She gave him a smile and turned around to face him.

Her tunic was creased and her cheeks and mouth were flushed. Sebastian felt a deep, keen pulse in the depths of his stomach and realised with a mingling of shame and disbelief that he could have taken her again. He wished he could. The last of his common decency felt like it had truly buckled and collapsed.

"You know, for a cloistered choir boy you're pretty good at that," Hawke said, and there was fondness mingled with her teasing tone.

"Hawke—" Sebastian shook his head.

"Want to do it again?"

"Hawke!"

"I don't mean now. Tomorrow. My place instead?" Her eyes glanced around his barren room. "Not that your… broom closet isn't charming—"

Sebastian stood up, realising belatedly that he was still naked. Blushing, he hurried to scoop up his shirt and hide his shame. He avoided her eye as he pulled it on. "Hawke, I can't sleep with you again. The Maker has enough reasons already to send me to the Void."

"You've already broken your vow, Sebastian." Hawke leant against the door, watching him with soft, satisfied eyes. "You can't break it twice. You wanted a sign that you were meant to be a prince, not a priest? Then maybe falling for a mage to the extent you attract the attention of a desire demon is it."

Sebastian sighed, looking away from her. "It isn't that simple—"

"Come to my estate tomorrow." Hawke's tone was firm, but also somewhat cajoling. She felt for the knob of the door behind her. "Let me show you the things I have in mind. Isabela taught me some fun games." Her eyes glinted and a smile played in the corners of her mouth.

Sebastian spluttered. " _Maker._ No, really, I can't—"

Hawke opened the door and gave him a look over her shoulder. "Sleep well, Sebastian."

Then she was gone.

Sebastian had half a mind to run after her, make her understand that he really, definitely _could not_ have sex with her again. Instead he sunk onto his bed and massaged the back of his neck with both hands. The electricity that had filled the room when she had been there departed too. The stillness was almost as heavy as the scent of sex in the air. He closed his eyes, trying to steady himself.

_When hope has abandoned me…_

He shook his head and got to his feet. He had to do something. Wash his clothes and his bedding, try and hide the evidence of what he'd obviously just been doing. Take his idle hands and do something useful with them. Pray and beg, _beg_ , the Maker for a shred of understanding.

_I will see the stars and know…_

But that intention was completely negated by the fact that, even as he stood there, he was already imagining, in vivid colour and detail, the possibilities of the next night.

He raised his eyes to the ceiling with a mixture of despair and exasperation. He was definitely going to the Void. And he didn't even know if he was sorry. Because he was seeing Hawke again.

_Your Light remains._


End file.
